Watch Marketing

How Watch Companies Side-Step The Truth

False Declarations of Timepiece Functionality

Dear Watch Snob,

It seems to me that regardless of our tastes in watches, we who love them are always interested in the various features they possess (or lack). The watch companies certainly trump these points up - sometimes in poor taste in my opinion (such as inscribing column wheels and so forth with bold bland fonts...watch movements for dummies?). But usually I am okay with simple and useful declarations (such as a water resistance rating, or a precious metal hallmark).

Lately I have become more and more aware of flat-out dishonesties in watch design - for example, a snap-on case back with knurled ridge (a la Rolex Oyster) to suggest a screw-in lid. Or knurled pushers that do not turn, but merely remain 'unlocked' (masquerading as a watertight chronograph). Would you agree these sorts of practices are just one step away from counterfeiting brand names? Much in the way I would rather wear a real Timex than a fake JLC, I have tried to stay far away from the watch equivalent of an automobile with an air scoop on its hood, and an anemic motor hidden below it.

Nobody expects a watch to be purely functional (they’d be damned boring and utterly homogenous if they were) but I agree absolutely that if there’s something on a watch that suggests functionality, it should in fact function; pseudo-screwed down chronograph pushers are certainly a case in point. Just make sure you’re looking at the real thing – your comment about the Rolex Oyster knurled caseback makes me wonder, as this was introduced on the first Oyster watches in 1926 and the Rolex Oyster case has had a screwed-down back ever since.

By the way, if you’re under the impression that announcing a special feature or complication on the dial is a new thing, rest assured it’s not – there are tourbillons made by Breguet during his lifetime that say “tourbillon” on the dial.

One Amazing Watch Is Better Than Several Mediocre Ones

I remember a bit of advice you once gave in your column, about resisting the temptation to accumulate a bevy of mediocre watches instead of acquiring a truly exceptional one. I have endeavored to take this advice to heart and have put aside about $10K, resisting many an urge along the way. I'm now seriously considering the purchase of a Chopard L.U.C. Classic Twin in white gold. What's your opinion of the L.U.C. line? Is the 4.96 movement respectable? Or am I on the verge of wasting my self-control to this point?

Not a bad choice at all, although personally I find the design a bit uninspired. The real reason for buying the Classic Twin is the LUC calibre 4.96, which is one of the nicer movements made not just by Chopard but by anybody. Now, however, is the time to avoid buying on impulse; you’re getting into territory where there are an awful lot of interesting possibilities starting to open up, and while the Classic Twin isn’t a bad watch, if it doesn’t really get your motor running in a big way – and I mean big – wait. Remember what T. S. Eliot said about a “moment’s surrender/which an age of discretion can never retract.”